Listing, narrating, healing. The symbiosis of list and narrative in mood inscription technologies

Abstract

This article explores the history of mood enrolment technologies, from early psychiatric diagrams to Web 2.0 mood-tracking applications, to analyze the relationship between lists and narratives in mental health care. Based on sociological theory and information infrastructure studies, it examines how these technologies have configured monitoring, intervention, research, and self-expression practices, revealing a symbiosis between the logic of the list and narrative construction. It is argued that the evolution of these technologies during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries shows a transition from a context organized according to narrative logic to one dominated by the database as a cultural form. Various forms of articulation between narration and list as communication techniques are identified, linking them to the predominant cultural form. Finally, it is suggested that an orientation of these practices towards managing the self, especially in clinical intervention contexts, privileges using narratives to make sense of the data. However, this narrative foundation of health care acquires different characteristics in the computerized society, where the database has been consolidated as the predominant cultural form.